Twenty-Four: Wren

The corridors of Vale Manor are colder than the courtyard, if that’s possible—like the air has learned shame and sealed itself inside the stones for good measure. My feet drag along uneven flagstones, each one worn into a shallow divot by generations of boots, claws, and the unlucky who came before me. The betas on either side—musclebound and bored—move me by the elbows, not stopping to check if my feet keep up.

The silver cuffs grind into my wrists. The nerve endings there have gone from burning to numb, but every step jars the joint and sends a new spike of pain through my arms. I want to cradle them to my chest, but the betas’ grip makes me stretch forward, hands locked in front like a penitentiary mugshot.

We take the main hall, the ceiling lost in darkness above, the walls hung with banners in the same blue and silver I saw outside. Every ten paces, a portrait of some dead Alpha stares down, eyes following us with predatory glee. It’s a parade of the self-righteous, and I’m the guest of honor.

We pass a landing where younger wolves cluster, half in and half out of human skin. They’re not supposed to shift without permission in the main house, but nobody’s stopping them tonight. A few snarl openly, lips curled and teeth bared, hackles up though they’re still in jeans and thermal shirts. One of the older omegas hisses, “That’s her,” and the whole knot of them pretends they weren’t waiting just to see me walked through.

The betas ignore it. One even rolls his eyes, the barest tick of contempt.

Every so often, we pass an open door: the kitchen, where the scent of meat and spices clashes with the iron stink of my own blood; the rec room, where a fire crackles and a handful of pups gather in silence, faces glued to the spectacle; a study, empty except for two wolves playing chess, both pretending not to notice. Nobody speaks to me directly. They just press themselves against the walls to let us by, as if the infection of my failure could spread on contact.

At a staircase, a woman in a battered flannel—maybe sixty, hair a pelt of gray—stops in the middle of her descent and stares down at me. For a second, I think she might say something, but then she spits on the floor, a perfect arc that lands between my feet.

The beta on my right snickers, low and derisive.

I want to look furious, but the muscles in my face aren’t taking instructions. All I manage is a twitch. There’s so much humiliation packed into every second I think my skull might burst from trying to contain it.

We round a sharp corner and nearly collide with an omega coming the other way. Young, maybe late teens, pale as a mushroom and twice as fragile. He freezes at the sight of me, eyes wide with a terror I’ve never inspired before in anyone. For a second, he looks right at me—no sneer, no hate, just confusion and a needle of sympathy. He tries to say something, mouth shaping the start of a question, but an elder grabs his collar and yanks him back into the shadow.

The chain between my cuffs clangs against the bannister as the betas frog-march me onward.

Somewhere, distant but audible, a wolf howls. It’s not the thin, elegant call you hear in documentaries. This one is ugly, torn, almost a scream. The other wolves ignore it, but I can feel it in my bones, a vibration that turns my blood to slush.

They drag me through a side corridor lined with glass-fronted cabinets, the shelves inside stacked with artifacts: hunting knives, medals, bundles of yellowed letters, the occasional clump of hair or tooth mounted to a plaque. I catch a glimpse of my own reflection in the cabinet glass: hollow-eyed, lips peeled back from my gums, the veins in my face gone blue from cold and silver. I don’t look human, or wolf. I look like something caught in the act of being neither.

The left-hand beta clears his throat and mutters to his partner, “Alpha wants her in isolation until council. No meds, no visitors.” He makes no effort to keep it from me; in fact, he says it louder, like I’m already deaf. His partner grunts, “Fine by me. Less work if she off-lines herself.” They both chuckle, as if the idea is a punchline, not a threat.

At the end of the corridor, they open a door and push me inside. It’s a room, but only barely: no windows, just a slit of vent high on the wall, a single bulb overhead that throws everything into monochrome. There’s a cot in the corner, the mattress flat as a tombstone, and a bucket next to it that I assume serves a purpose I don’t want to think about. The stone underfoot is rough and cold, already wet with old condensation.

The betas don’t follow. They shove me in, then close the door with a heavy, deliberate slam. I hear the bolts slide home, then the muffled rhythm of boots as they walk away.

It’s only then, with the world gone quiet and still, that the full weight of what happened sinks in. I stagger to the cot and sit, cradling my hands in my lap. The skin beneath the cuffs is blistered, the hair burned away in little white circles. My hands shake so hard I can barely thread my fingers together, but I do it anyway, gripping so tight the blood flow stops. I need to stop shaking. I need to feel anything but the hollow ache where the bond used to be.

In the silence, my mind runs wild. Every humiliation of the last hour replays in excruciating detail: Lucian’s mask of indifference, the crowd’s hunger, the dead-white faces of the children lined up to see the reject. For a minute, I cycle through every possible escape—break the cuffs, dig out the vent, smash my way through the door—but none of it survives even the first second of real analysis. I am powerless. Less than powerless.

My chest goes tight. For a moment I think I’m going to throw up, but the nausea never resolves. Instead, I curl forward, forehead on my knees, and try to ride it out. The tears come, but not the way I expect. They don’t feel like sadness or grief. They’re just a reflex, an overflow valve for a body that’s out of answers.

The howling outside continues, softer now, more like a lullaby for the damned.

I sit there until my legs go numb and the silver finally stops burning.

I’m not sure if I’m alive or dead, but either way, I am still here.

I survived the bite. I can survive this.

At least, that’s what I tell myself.